1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to a wireless communication system that authenticates the right of access to a wireless network by using an attribute certificate, a terminal used in the wireless communication system, a method for reporting the status of the terminal, and a program for causing a computer to execute the method for reporting the status of the terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to miniaturization and improvement in performance of electronic apparatuses, it has become easier to carry and use such electronic apparatuses. Thus, an environment that allows a terminal to be connected to a network and to achieve communication at any place necessary has been desired. In such a situation, wireless communication systems utilizing wireless communication are adopted.
In wireless communication systems, in order to prevent access from a terminal that does not have a right of connection with a certain network resource, authorization control utilizing attribute certificates (ACs) is performed. Attribute certificates were newly defined by the X.509 version 3 in March 2000, and the contents of data fields contained in attribute certificates were collectively defined as Standards-Track Request for Comments (RFC) in April 2002. The use of an attribute certificate as an access pass to a network resource enables confirmation of the right of connection with the network resource, and connection permission can be granted only to a terminal holding a connection license.
A wireless communication system in which mutual authentication is performed using an attribute certificate is suggested, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-274193 (FIG. 1). In this wireless communication system, a terminal identifier of an attribute-certificate-issuing terminal is treated as a network identifier of a network in the wireless communication system, and it is confirmed that network identifiers correspond to each other when authentication is performed.